He rejected the two goddesses’ advances but they refused to leave him, even watching when he and his wife would have sex.Įventually Pasikole tried to get rid of the goddesses by tricking them into huge baskets and leaving them in the mountains. Pasikole loved his mortal wife, however, and remained true to her. These two sisters fell in love with the mortal Pasikole, the only Polynesian man with blonde hair.
In some versions Maniloa’s slayers ate his remains as a form of poetic justice, only to find themselves cursed with cannibalistic hunger after doing so.įAINGA’A and SI’SI – The patron goddesses of true but unrequited love. His godly essence entered all of them, filling them with his hunger for human flesh and turning them into the first cannibals of the Samoan islands. Maniloa (no relation to Barry Maniloa – rimshot) would construct bridges like spider-webs over ravines. When people would cross those bridges Maniloa would shake them, causing the mortals to fall to their deaths below, following which he would devour their remains.Įventually an entire army of ancient Samoans attacked him and succeeded in slaying him. Originally humans did not feed on each other. Various demons patrolled the path to Pulotu for Savea and would seize any mortals daring to venture along that path while still alive. The entrance to Savea’s realm was at a cave in Falealupo. Savea’s brother was Salevao, the god of minerals found deep in the earth. His wives were the twin tattooing goddesses Taema and Tilifaiga, one of whom (accounts vary) gave birth to their daughter Nafanua, the goddess of war. Savea had the head, arms and torso of a human but the rest of his body was that of a large eel. SAVEA – The god who rules over the subterranean land of the dead, called Pulotu. He is the son of the god Turia, who controls the weather. Lesa can also be prayed to to ruin the crops of one’s enemies during wartime. All manner of cultivated foods fall under his purview. He brings abundant harvests and can help crops by asking his wife Saato to send rain. LESA – The Samoan god of agriculture and plenty. Because they were born conjoined it is considered an affront to Taema and Tilafaiga for humans to sit back to back. As twins double yams, double bananas and other flukes are sacred to them. On Fiji the twins learned the art of tattooing and when they swam back to the Samoan islands they introduced the artform there. These two goddesses were born as conjoined twins but as they swam the ocean to Tutuila and then Fiji they were separated by a collision with a floating log. TAEMA and TILAFAIGA – The patron deities of tattooing. Their daughter is the rain goddess Saato. Two mountains on Savai’i are named for them. They are represented in the form of two smooth, oblong stones. TOAFA and FOGE – The goddess and god of freshwater springs that burst forth from rocks. Since conflicts in some form persist in some areas of the world at all times Vavau is still wandering among humans, but every time he brings a peaceful resolution to one conflict another breaks out elsewhere. VAVAU – The Samoan god of peace. The chief deity Tangaloa sent Vavau from the heavens down to the earth, forbidding him to return until he had brought peace to all humanity. She mated with the supreme deity Tangaloa to give birth to some of the Samoan islands. Admittedly that is an oddly specific designation. In the Samoan pantheon she is strictly the goddess of the flatrock base beneath islands. PAPA – In other Polynesian island groups Papa is the Earth goddess. GEGE – A deity who specialized in ridding the Samoan island of Upolu of demons. Operating out of his base at Falealili he roamed the island, met demons in contests of magic and transformed them into stone. Countless unusual rock formations on Upolu are said to be the petrified bodies of the demons overcome by Gege. *** FOR THE GODS OF OTHER POLYNESIAN ISLAND GROUPS –īELLONA ISLAND AND RENNELL ISLAND – CLICK HERE I have previously covered various deities of the Hawaiian islands and in the future I will address the gods of the other Polynesian island groups. Samoan mythology as a subset of Polynesian mythology will be the subject of this blog post.
0 kommentar(er)
